After spending the weekend on lockdown to protect against a gunman who shot two Democratic Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses, one couple fatally, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar says she has words for Utah Sen. Mike Lee and his reaction to the killings.
“I have condemned what Mike Lee did here at home, and I will speak to him about this when I return,” the Minnesota Democrat said during a Monday morning interview on MSNBC. “And what I’m going to tell him is: This isn’t funny, what happened here.”
From his personal account on the platform X, Lee spread unfounded claims about the alleged gunman across multiple posts, making light of the killings and attempting to blame the violence on the political left. One post, however, sparked immediate criticism from both sides of the aisle.
Sunday, over 30 hours into a manhunt, Lee was making posts that falsely tied the slayings to Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who was his party’s nominee for vice president last year. Numerous onlookers characterized Lee’s tone as mocking.
With a purported image of the alleged shooter in a mask on a doorstep that was circulated by law enforcement, Lee posted, “Nightmare on Waltz [sic] Street.” As of Monday afternoon, the remarks have been shared over 3,400 times and liked by over 16,000 accounts.
“This was an incredible woman, her husband, her two kids — yesterday on Father’s Day, there was no Father’s Day for them,” Klobuchar said. “They lost both their parents.”
(Kenny Holston | The New York Times) Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D-Minn.) speaks during a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on promoting competition and protecting consumers in live entertainment, in Washington on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. The panel is likely to focus on whether Ticketmaster has such a dominant position in the market that it did not feel the need to spend money on the sort of technological innovations that might have handled the surge of demand for Swift tickets, an assertion the company denies.
Klobuchar continued, “So that’s what I’m going to tell Sen. Lee when I get back to Washington today, because this is not a laughing matter, and certainly what we’re seeing is an increase in violence, and this evil man who did this — this is not a joke.”
In a scathing letter to Lee’s staff Monday, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith’s deputy chief of staff, Ed Shelleby said Lee had “exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats.”
“Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweet[s]?,” Shelleby asked. “Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?”
“She was a force. And a human being,” Shelleby concluded his email. “And I beg of you to exercise some restraint on social media as we continue to grieve.”
Monday afternoon, Semafor reporter Eleanor Mueller posted a photo of Smith speaking with Lee for a few minutes after pulling him out of a members-only briefing on the Senate floor. Asked what she told Lee, Smith said, “Let me just gather myself,” and hurried back onto the floor.
Multiple Republican state lawmakers in Minnesota also criticized Lee’s apparent jest in their own social media posts.
Minnesota state GOP Rep. Walter Hudson said, “This has nothing to do with Governor Walz.” Another Republican, Rep. Nolan West, wrote, “I have tremendous respect for Senator Mike Lee, but it doesn’t mean he is immune from the base impulses social media incentivizes. People say stupid stuff on the internet all the time. The best they can do is admit they shouldn’t have and be better.”
In an interview with a local TV station, Smith said she was on a list of the alleged shooter’s targets, along with other elected officials. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement Saturday that he asked Capitol Police to increase security for both of Minnesota’s senators.
Despite claims like those Lee amplified that Minnesota’s governor had close ties to the suspected shooter, Vance Boelter, Walz’s staff say the governor did not know the alleged shooter. His office merely reappointed Boelter to a bipartisan advisory board in 2019.
Boelter, who was arrested Sunday, had a list of prominent Minnesota Democrats who supported abortion rights as well as abortion providers, according to authorities, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported. They also indicated Boelter had strong anti-abortion views.
He also had flyers for “No Kings” protests of President Donald Trump, authorities said. The Minnesota protests were canceled.
(Tim Gruber | The New York Times) A vehicle believed to belong the suspected gunman, who was impersonating law enforcement is towed away from the home of the late State Rep. Melissa Hortman in Brooklyn Park, Minn., on June 14, 2025. Vance Boelter, the man identified as the suspect in the attacks on two lawmakers, is listed as the director of security patrols on the website of a Minnesota-based security group.
His roommate and friend, David Carlson, told reporters Sunday that Boelter had become a born-again Christian and would preach in the park. He didn’t like Democratic figures like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and former President Joe Biden, but Carlson said his friend didn’t have extremist views.
Carlson also said Boelter voted for Trump in November.
Police say former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed in their home in a Minneapolis suburb early Saturday morning by a man impersonating a police officer
Earlier that night, Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were shot and wounded in their home.
Lee’s office did not respond to an inquiry regarding what evidence the senator has to back up his claims, nor about his reasoning for posting such statements.
Utah Democratic Party Chair Brian King said that “Sadly, this is what we’ve come to expect from Mike Lee — detached from reality and fully aligned with extremist politics. I would love to see him committed to facts and reason to serve Utahns, but he left that world a long time ago.”
@basedmikelee’s posts vs. Sen. Lee’s post
In Lee’s first post about the shooting after the news broke, the senator wrote from his personal @BasedMikeLee account on X, “My guess: He’s not MAGA.”
He did not condemn the violence for more than 24 hours after his initial post, eventually sharing a statement on his official U.S. Senate account — not his personal account.
Lee is a prolific user of the platform X, frequently using his @BasedMikeLee account to attack his political enemies and spread false or misleading information, and has averaged more than 100 posts a day on the platform over the last several months.
His following on X has steadily grown, recently surpassing 600,000 followers, up from 453,000 at the start of the year.
On Saturday afternoon, a few hours after Lee’s initial comments, his Utah colleague in the Senate, Sen. John Curtis wrote on X, “I’m deeply disturbed by the targeted attacks on lawmakers in Minnesota. There is no justification — ever — for political violence.”
He added, at the end of the post, “Moments like this demand that we rise above division and recommit to respectful discourse.”
Later that evening, Lee continued posting his assumptions about the Minnesota shooter. The senior member of Utah’s federal delegation quoted a post containing misleading information about the identity of a man who allegedly attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump on the campaign trail, and Boelter.
An original post said, “The left … kills a MN state rep and her husband and injures a Senator and his wife. The left has become a full blown domestic terrorist organization.” Sharing the post with his followers, Lee commented, “Marxism kills. Americans must reject it — always.”
About 45 minutes later, the senator shared two posts from the right-wing “Libs of TikTok” account — the first a video of ralliers running after a shooting at an anti-Trump protest in Utah. “Make it stop. Condemn all political violence,” Lee said. One person has died as a result of the shooting.
The second post included limited information about Boelter, reading, “So a Tim Walz appointee with ‘No Kings’ flyers in his car went on a shooting spree today and murdered and injured lawmakers?? Holy shit.”
“Marxism is a deadly mental illness,” Lee added.
On Sunday morning, Lee continued spreading claims that the Minnesota shooter was a Marxist. At 8:50 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time, Lee posted the image of Boelter in a mask, writing, “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”
Less than half an hour later, Lee shared the same image, saying “Nightmare on Waltz [sic] Street,” referring to Walz, the state’s governor and the former vice presidential candidate.
He also declared from his social account Sunday morning that “America’s under attack from within,” alongside a Libs of TikTok video of Portland protesters damaging a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon — about 25 hours and 36 minutes after Lee began posting about the shooting on his personal account and the day following another deadly shooting in Salt Lake City — that his official account made a statement denouncing the political violence.
“These hateful attacks have no place in Utah, Minnesota, or anywhere in America,” the post from @SenMikeLee read. “Please join me in condemning this senseless violence, and praying for the victims and their families.”
That, however, was not Lee’s last post on the matter.
Hours after Klobuchar’s interview, Lee shared comments from Elon Musk — the world’s richest man, who previously worked closely with the White House — in which he echoed false claims of “the left” being responsible for the Minnesota shootings. “The far left is murderously violent,” Musk said.
Lee added, “Fact check: TRUE.”
This story is developing and may be updated.
